Wave Pool Foiling - How Kelly Slater's wave pool works.

By now you’ve seen the millimeter perfect waves that Kelly Slaters Wave Pool can produce on queue. You’ve seen the long, looooong barrels. You’ve seen the new sections. You’ve seen that aerial from Filipe Toledo.

But do you know how it works?

Truth-be-told, very few know exactly how it works, only the few engineers who designed it and Kelly himself could explain it in enough detail to recreate it from scratch. But we do know enough to say that hydrofoil technology has been the number one ingredient which contributed to the enormous success of the wave. Who would have thought foiling would be so instrumental in surfing!

To help show how it works, we need to see it from the air. So check out the video below and come back for a quick rundown on the three things that make the worlds best wave pool work.

Seen it? Read on!

1: A hydrofoil is dragged underwater.

That blue thing running down the left side of the pool in the video, is powered by electricity and carries an underwater hydrofoil. The foil transfers energy from the blue thing, to water, and that energy is directed up, and out from the foil.

2: A channel redistributes water back ‘out the back’.

On the right side of the pool, is a deep channel which allows water to be redistributed from one end of the pool to the other, like a man-made rip. Obviously important, otherwise each wave would wash all the water up to one end.

3: The bottom shape defines the wave.

As you can see from the air, the pool is deepest near the hydrofoil, and then almost runs dry on the other side. Just like in real life, the shape of the sea floor defines the wave shape, so Kelly's pool features different sections to make barrels, open faces and a closeout section for aerials.